Y'know I hate this whole Heisei Phase 1 and Phase 2 nonsense. It all just the Heisei Era. It's not like the emperor died and was ressurected as a robot halfway through his run or anything. What next are we goijg to being calling it Reiwa Phase 2; 8 years from now? To me the overall whole of Heisei from Kuuga to ZI-O has been great it truly is my favaorite Era in Rider and will be for a long time now.

I do get what you mean by finality though sometimes a show is better off with the show ending. But you know what I realized? Almost always it dosen't matter. Let me make an example Star Wars the main thing is the movies and the book are side thing they tell expanded stories and even featuring returning characters and they maybe canon but it still the movies that people are going to remember and know. To me the tv show matters the most and anything after that should always be optional.

I mean, some of it is due to shows like Decade and Zi-O specifically demarking 10 Years as an important break, and worthy of notice. (I mean, toku shows will celebrate every and any anniversary they can find, so it's not really integral to the franchise.) If you think we're not going to get a Reiwa version of Decade, you are fooling yourself.

Beyond that... I think there's a definite tonal difference between Phase 1 and Phase 2? The immediate focus on Collectibles -- pioneered by W -- is a massive alteration to the formula, and every single show that followed would need to address its assumption in some way. Add to that the ways Winter/Spring/Summer movies altered the storytelling structure, the Den-O-inflected comedy becoming more of a standard flavor, and more stuff I can't think of right now? It's not Heisei-to-Showa different, but there's enough identity to the two Phases to make it reasonable to acknowledge.

That's harder to do when characters from old series start popping up in newer ones. Avoiding a post-Drive Shinnosuke appearance could mean skipping an Ex-Aid movie that's kind of crucial to Ex-Aid's plot. It's not really a franchise that lets you pick and choose Legend Rider appearances, unfortunately.

I do at least personally think that each show should get one teamup a year after for fairness reasons like most sentai as in, in the days of Kabuto it would have been nice to have seen what Kagami and co were doing a year on and possibly had Kagami as Kabuto even though a teamup with Den-O would have probably not have given Kabuto much focus, like with the Kiva one!

I don't know!

I like the little Phase 2 epilogues on one level. Sometimes the shows end in a somewhat rushed way, and it's nice to get a little more closure on our various heroes. Especially with a massive supporting cast, I think it's okay to have them pop in for a scene or two.

But on the other hand... like, thank god there was never a Blade/Hibiki crossover movie. We'd've gotten some contrived reason why Kenzaki and Hajime could team up to take down some Makamou, and split up forever AGAIN, and it would've always tainted Blade's TV ending. I'm literally getting mad just thinking about this purely hypothetical example.

So, yeah, not sure I like it as a bare minimum requirement!

On the one hand, it's great to see our heroes return. It's symbolic of how they live on, in our hearts long after the show is over, that they can still elicit such emotion, that they kept fighting for justice even off-screen. But on the other hand, sometimes it feels like a story can never be over. There always has to be more trials, each more convoluted than the last.

I feel like. ironically enough given you Die, Ex-Aid is kinda where that takes hold? Before that, each Rider gets 1/3 of a film for an epilogue, and that's it. One last Ride, as convoluted as it is, and done. Sure, Gaim and Drive have post-story V-Cins, but they felt like special occasions (half of them take place during the show), but then Ex-Aid... an entire trilogy was announced the day of the finale. And it's a lovely open-ended finale, you say to yourself, so maybe it works, but then Build does the same with a much more restricted setting, and then again more recently with Zero-One and Saber... Maybe it's like the 2-week structure put in place by Den-O, which lasted 7 years until Gaim broke it wide open. Things will change in the future.

Yeah, it... so many of these shows are designed to take one character (or team) on one specific metaphorical journey, squaring them off against a specific metaphorical adversary. Continuing their story past the series finale starts to feel like Moby Dick 2, you know? Once you've completed your character arc and defeated the enemy that represented something universal and cautionary, what point is there in more conflict? Like, Haruto triumphed over the embodiments of despair, bringing hope to the hopeless... now fight some space robots or historical warlords or something idk

Yeah, there’s only so much you can go with a character without it requiring a total reset to justify the story…

And hats where I’ll leave this thread, on that ominous ellipsis.

Funnily enough, I feel like your repeated use of OOO as an example of a show that's more justified than others in receiving continuations kinda underlines how subjective this whole thing can be. I mean, I was there in 2011, and there has never once been a moment in all this time that I've actually wanted to see that いつかの明日 Toei keeps teasing us with. The announcement of that V-Cinema that's coming out soon made me more apprehensive than anything, to be honest. Much like Blade, the bittersweet feeling of OOO's finale is where a lot of its beauty comes from in my mind. You had the two main characters both wrapping up their arcs in the most poignant ways possible, between Ankh affirming that he got to know what it truly means to be alive, and Eiji finding a new reason to keep reaching out his hand. (The latter of which is further highlighted in the extended cut of the final episodes, where Kougami does a Happy Birthday for Eiji, in contrast to the one he did for OOO as the series' start.) It was a complete story, and there wasn't anything it felt like it had left to say. Surely any follow-up to that would simply be missing the point? Even Mega Max wisely centers its emotional arc around an unrelated new character.

...But you know, the guy who wanted to things to end while they were still beautiful was also the bad guy in that finale.

I definitely have similar feelings to you on this matter, which is where that last big paragraph is coming from, but at the same time, I think I've mellowed out a bit on the idea over the years. Where I'm at now, I'd basically put thusly -- it's not okay to need constant continuations, but it is okay to have them.

The TV shows still stand on their own as those complete narratives, and while that's what can make it feel frustrating to have the characters still popping up constantly, that's also what makes it a non-issue how those later projects relate back to the source material. This might be colored by my general perspective as someone who doesn't focus on concepts like canon all that much, but like you said about Kuuga in that post, you can't ever really tamper with these things.

(And while it may be telling that the Kuuga movie sequel apparently never got off the ground because nobody could think of a satisfying enough plot, it's just as telling that they were all more than willing to give it a shot in the first place.)

Oh, and speaking of which, I would like to emphasize that it's everyone's favorite Destroyer of Worlds that we have to thank for the current status quo. You complain about how awful a hypothetical Blade/Hibiki movie would've been, but that's only because Rider shows back then were explicitly being designed to not fit together, unlike the Showa era, until Decade came along, and like I mentioned at the end of the thread for show, he smashed all those rules to bits.

I honestly lean towards GrandComplete's opinion here, because I think the trends people associate with either era evolved far more gradually than people realize (we've been doing two-parters since Kuuga, for example), but if there's one thing that marks a very, very clear delineation between the two halves of Heisei Rider, it's definitely when Tsukasa's existence cemented the very concept of Legend Riders as we know it now.

And that's fine, honestly. I'd never want a creative team to avoid exploring the possibilities of a new story, just to keep some previous ending pristine. I loved a whole bunch of these Legend Rider projects, despite being fundamentally wary of -slash- opposed to the concept. Good ideas win out, you know?

I feel like I should be shouting something in anger, but I can't remember what it is. (My memory of Decade is shot.) If anyone can recall what exclamation I should be all-caps-ing, please post it in this thread. Thanks!

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PROGRAMMING NOTE!

I'm about to be switching around some website stuff for my business. The store website is also where I host all of my screencaps, soooo those are all probably going to disappear in the next few hours.

But! I'll be setting up a new, permanent online home for them, and I'll start repopulating old posts with those images. (File structures should be identical, so it'll mostly just be changing the domain names.) I'm going to start with this thread, then keep picking my way backwards through the archives. The goal is to get all the old threads fixed before starting Zi-O. In the meantime, old threads/posts are going to look weird. Sorry! I'll get the pictures fixed, at least. (It doesn't seem like the weird text-formatting errors that the site introduced are ever going to get fixed, which is a bummer.) Assuming the switchover/setup isn't too arduous, I'll be back later tonight for the Thread Wrap-Up post.

Thanks for your patience!

THREAD WRAP-UP

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And that’s it for Kamen Rider Die… uh, what was it again? “Kamen Rider Die rewatches Legend Rider projects (and more!)” Huh. Okay! I guess that’s the name of this thread.

Or, was the name of this thread, since I’m all rewatched out. This was fun, though. I know the Series Wrap-Up post makes it sound like I was morally opposed to this project, or whatever, but I sincerely had a good time. These movies (and more) may’ve lacked some of the nuance and follow-through that I most prefer in my storytelling, but they generally delivered excitement and adventure. That’s no small thing, and it worked for me more often than it didn’t.

As always, the real delight was in watching these movies and whatnot with all of you. It was probably not the easiest schedule to follow, jumping around through a nine-year span of content, but I appreciated all of your recollections and opinions. Getting to reminisce about favorite heroes and dumb gags and cool twists and heartbreaking finales… just the best fandom, this one. So grateful for every one of you.

I’ll be a little scarce for the next couple weeks, despite probably being on the boards more than ever. Website for work is all switched over for e-commerce, and KamenRiderDie.com is fully stocked with old screencaps, so I’m going to be spending a lot of the next two weeks fixing old image links. (This thread is already fixed!) The plan is to get everything back to normal, image-wise (RIP this site’s ability to understand punctuation), by the time we get started on Zi-O.

Which is coming up fairly soon! The plan, today, is to kick-off “Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider Zi-O” on Thursday, March 10th. I’ve got folders of videos, just waiting to be watched.

Since this comes up occasionally, here are the subs I’m planning on using:
MAIN SERIES: OZC-LIVE
OVER QUARTZER: RIDER TIME
HEISEI GENERATIONS FOREVER: GENMCORP
GEIZ MAJESTY: IPHT
DECADE/ZI-O: IPHT
RYUKI: OZC-LIVE
SHINOBI: OZC-LIVE

If any of those subs should be avoided, please let me know! I will do what I can to track down better/preferrable copies.

Otherwise, that’s pretty much it for me? Things were written in weird ways, so I don’t really have a complete text document to make into a WordArt. No main Rider from this run (that I didn’t already own), so there’s no new figure to show off. I feel sort of bad? This was only ever supposed to be a gap-filler project, so I didn’t– I didn’t think about the usual components? Sorry! Rest assured, Kamen Rider Zi-O will be a fully-formed project, and all of the pointless affectations will make their appearances. Would you expect anything less for an anniversary series?

Thanks for hanging out and talking about Kamen Rider! See you in a couple weeks!

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That's understandable but maybe then there would be less additional spinoffs people are complaining about and it would have been nice to see to bring it in line with Sentai is all I'm thinking. I suppose someone could always try and edit together a Blade and Hibiki teamup for those that want to see it!

But about the Heisei Phase 1 and Phase 2 thing, some Showa fans hate Heisei and vice versa despite the fact we're not even in the Heisei era any more and Kuuga is still a fairly different proposition to say later in the 2000s or after, both Showa and Heisei are quite long periods of time so I would personally at least rather go by decade if I had to choose than just hear endlessly about Showa vs. Heisei vs. Reiwa debates.

Other than handling final projects lately (and these are movies, so not like the 23 minutes TV episodes), I'm kinda skipping this thread due to actually not following early phase 2 heisei series yet (the remaining ones I haven't watched; OOO, Fourze, Wizard. For Reiwa, didn't watch Saber. 1 episode left for Zero-One this Wednesday), so was kinda following your suggestion to not be spoiled (albeit I know the basic stuff those series has especially the forms, also the main characters in this movie), just thinking on what to do if I have watched those movies - though I also actually have less interest in the movies especially the crossover ones.... I'm starting on the more recent one first (in this thread, as well as something I did watch)

Now I do actually want to see it being actually done, as they did use multiple main Riders here, so doing the opposite of inserting multiple secondary Riders. Brigades of main Riders with brigade of secondary Riders.

Bikaiser isn't trying to destroy the world, he wants to be completely immortal (still the usual power hungry kind yeah), but of course he doesn't care if his search of power destroys the world. As you said, Build is a really good series, but even from any good series I don't expect those Rider movies to be good now, if I'm being honest, which is why I have less interest in the movies (of course, I skipped this thread, so dunno if there are movies that are really praised here), as Bikaiser part or general plot of the movies that happened in Build: Heisei Generations are not one time thing, but in my experience so far is most of the Rider movie I've watched.

Though, what interests me in this talk is the situation Bikaiser put where how Sento is pushed to do that. Is Sento actually pulling a, quite extremist move to try to save the world here by actually trying to merge the 2 worlds here? (and as Parado stated, it can destroy the world) Is he actually doing something similar to what the likes of Takatora from Gaim did for this part of the story? I'd like for the movie to deal with Sento's (or other Rider's) feelings on how he feels to be pushed to use drastic measures like this, have to cause some damage in the world to prevent actual end of the world, but of course, after Bikaiser was defeated, the resolution is the most easiest one of reverting all the damages that had happened. I do know that Eiji is a wanderer who deals with PTSD from his traumatic experience in the past, war related, and that Ankh is his snarky as well as more morally questionable partner that possesses Hina's brother. Other than that would like for akinoame's OOO analysis to be given a try.

True, it centered between Parado and Banjou interacting with the main Rider from the different series (well, for Banjou, for multiple phase 2 Riders), and I feel like, generic stuff aside (Though I honestly now don't like the "generic" word to criticize something tbh), the focus is far more given to Banjou, disproportionately compared to Parado. What Parado did was only him fighting off some Bugsters and evacuating civilians by Sento's order, as well as shouting on Sento's solution to put the world at risk by maximizing Enigma's output. And it does make sense on Banjou questioning why the other Riders, actually exclusively main Riders, who are mostly made as epitome of nobility, as at this stage he's shown to be selfish and is really focused on his own problems, hypocritically complaining that Sento is focused on his own problems instead of his in the series. Banjou is a secondary Rider though, he's significantly better than the likes of Ankh (who from what I know, has maliciousness like Den-O's Taros except Kin) and especially Parado (who was a major antagonist in the show, the one that is marketed when Ex-Aid was announced and actually became a main one after Kuroto's game over), so Sento's task is significantly easier.

This also shows the difference between Kuroto and Parado though, that Parado is actually redeemed after Emu's brutal but necessary tactic to get him to differentiate video game's lives and human's lives, like him being shocked on Sento's decision to maximize Enigma's output, while Kuroto is still imprisoned and in the series previously, he's only on the heroes side in circumstancial matter, a case of evil vs evil by him getting revenge on Parado and then Masamune, and happens to be aligned with the heroes (like Kusaka fighting Orphnochs due to racism, happens to be what the heroes doing). Kuroto doesn't care about the looming threat the Enigma gives, only cares to feed his god complex, of which luckily Onari can convince him by... ass-kissing him.

I'm fine with it, because their story still ended. With the exception of things like V-Cinemas and TTFC stuff (latter which is optional side content), they only show up to help up the new hero. And these riders are allowed to grow. Watching OOO as a kid and then seeing the V-Cinema, it was a very special feeling.

It's unlike Marvel or DC where it has the relentless need to keep the status quo, thus erasing character history, developments, or making things just convoluted in the long run.

It's one thing to keep showing you what the other riders are up to in another rider's show every year or, say, Kamen Rider Revice ends with "Revice will return in Kamen Rider Shinobi" or something like that, and it's another to have the suit and maybe a few guest actors to show up in some team up movie or TTFC special. That's the difference, I feel.

80 minutes of Hibiki doing his salute and Tachibana freaking out.

He is not! As he and Emu point out, what they've done is move the fusion timetable up enough to prevent Bikaiser from becoming immortal. The worlds get closer, which allows the heroes to team-up, but without giving Bikaiser the full benefit he was anticipating.

(And welcome back!)

Sure, I can see that. I sort of think this is a problem/perspective that's more unique to me, which is fine. It's not some violent aversion to Rider returns or anything. There're just some moments where I wish we got definitive endings again, where actors only came back to play waiters in cameos. Those were the days, maybe.